Of Blind Dates and Beards
by The Xylia
Summary: Bobby is going on a blind date, but he has to figure out how to get out of the mansion without being noticed. And he thought that was his biggest problem...
1. Help

**Title: **Of Blind Dates and Beards

**Author: **The Xylia

**Genre: **Humor

**Rating: **G

**Description: **Bobby is going on a blind date, but he has to figure out how to get out of the mansion without being noticed. And he thought that was his biggest problem…

**Universe/time:** AU: Set directly after X1, but Logan has come back before any of the X2 events. (Nightcrawler, etc.)

**Spoilers: **From X-Men 1

**Disclaimer:** The idea of X-Men and mutants all belong to Marvel comics, the creators of the X-Men comics, 20th Fox Century, and anyone else officially involved with X-Men. I am not making any money from this. However, this story-line and Bobby's date are mine; please don't use/steal them.

**Other author's notes: **Very short chapter, I know, but there'll probably be quite a few of them.

As I develop this, I'm beginning to wonder if it's a very strong plotline, but I absolutely had to follow the plot bunny, so…It should be funny, at least.

Telepathy is in _italics_, though I'm not sure there'll be any in here.

I would appreciate correction of any wrong details if I happen to use anything from the comics, which I don't know tons about.

* * *

"I can't believe I did this." The speaker, Bobby Drake, aka Iceman, looked completely miserable.

"So skip it," his roommate and best friend advised. "What's the big deal?"

"You don't understand!" Bobby exclaimed. "If I skip it, she'll never talk to me again. And she's not going to accept my saying I'm sick or something, because she's already fed up with my constant putting her off."

John sighed in annoyance. "So what if she doesn't talk to you again? You just know her through that idiotic dating site."

"She's the only girl I can get to talk to me!" Bobby protested forcefully. "And the purpose of the date _is_ to know her off the 'Net. Look, can't you distract the teachers so I can get away for a few hours? I've done the same for you."

"Name one time when I actually asked you to cover for me for something this crazy." When Bobby opened his mouth, looking like he was going to recite a few dozen, John realized his he had asked for cover several times before, for things Bobby probably considered crazy. Shoving the thought aside, John added quickly, "And the girls _do_ talk to you."

"Yeah, to tease me," Bobby retorted. "Oh fine, they do talk to me, but can you imagine anyone else actually wanting to go with me? This girl does! Please, you wouldn't deny your best friend what might be his only date ever, would you?"

John eyed the teenager kneeling before him, outstretched hands clasped together in the classic begging position. "Oh, all right," he snapped sourly. Bobby's whole face lit up as he quickly stood.

"Great!" Bobby exclaimed happily. "I was thinking I could be sick tonight. If anyone we don't trust tries to see me, you make the smoke detectors go off. Simple!"

John glared at him. "How long do you think it'd take Cyclops to figure out who caused the fire?"

"We'll put plugged in appliance things next to the smoke detectors, along with the candles you'll make flare up. He'll just think someone was careless."

John threw up his hands in exasperation. "You have this all planned out, don't you?" he muttered snidely. "Fine."


	2. A Beard

**Author's notes:**

All reviewers: Thanks for reviewing!

BobbyD: Actually, the girl wasn't going to be a main part of this…But now you've given me ideas. Mwahahaha!

Well, Bobby's nice, but I picture him as being more of an obnoxious boy usually. (Although the movies ignore that part of him.)

Btw, you convinced me to write a sequel to Why Backups Are Good Things.

* * *

An hour later toaster, microwaves, battery chargers, and other small electronics were all plugged in next to all the smoke detectors on the west side of the mansion, opposite the two pranksters' room. The said pranksters were in a nearby computer room, John on the 'Net and Bobby reviewing the email correspondences between himself and his date.

"She has brown hair, a bit past her shoulders, brown eyes, average height. Nothing particularly special, but that's okay."

John sighed. All he wanted to do was search for cheat codes for his Final Fantasy game. Was a bit of silence really so much to ask? The Popsicle had been chattering away about this girl nonstop since they'd gotten here.

"She's a single child, and—"

John glanced over to Bobby, who's mouth was still open although he had stopped talking.

"Oh, no," Bobby whispered, obviously horrified. "Look."

Pyro sighed again and looked over Bobby's shoulder. "What is it?" he demanded irritably.

Bobby pointed to the screen where a copy of one of his sent emails was up. John read the line he was pointing to and groaned. "I have light, short curly hair and a three-inch beard." John thwaped his friend on the head. "You idiot. Why would you tell her you have a beard? You'll have to have shaved, then."

"No, I can't." Bobby seemed in a state of shock. "Look at her response. 'You, a beard? I have to see that. Promise you'll keep it until we meet.' And I promised. She'll have a fit if I say I did shave it."

"This is way too much trouble. Say you shaved the stupid thing and get on with you life already!"

"No. I've got to grow a beard."

John exploded. "You think you can grow a beard in four hours?" he yelled.

"_John_." Hank, supervising the computers, shot him a stern look. "Please refrain from shouting."

In a much quieter, but not at all less passionate voice, John continued. "Has your one brain cell died? How on _earth_ do you plan to grow a beard in a couple of hours? What are you going to do, glue hair on your face?"

"I guess so," Bobby moaned. "Unless you can think of anything better. Where can I get the hair?"

"I didn't mean," John sputtered. "Oh, never mind, you're hopeless. I'll help cover for you when you leave, but other than that you're on your own." He stalked out of the room, leaving Bobby starting after him.


	3. Risky Mission

**Author's notes:**

Again, thank you to all reviewers. (I already had this chapter all plotted out, BobbyD, which is why he isn't using hair tonic.)

All right, I confess: I have a tiny case of writer's block. Very tiny, and I could probably get over it quickly if I wanted to, but I'm wrapping up Not Even Memories, so that's taking up all of my writing time. Anyway, the next update will hopefully be fairly soon.

* * *

In his dorm, Bobby stared at his notepad blankly. John had disappeared somewhere, offering Bobby no help whatsoever. The Iceman was contemplating on how to find hair that would work. Not many people had blonde or curly hair, and no one besides himself had both. The only person he could think of with slightly curly hair of the correct length had dark hair, and was lethal besides. His incredible hearing might cause him to wake up just from the sound of a razor. Yes, Logan definitely wasn't the greatest choice, but he seemed to be the only one he had.

Bobby needed to find hair dye, though. One of the girls had to have some – the problem was finding which one.

And that was how he ended up ransacking one of the girls' bathrooms when he should have been doing algebra. The girls most likely to use this one were currently at the mall, so his chance of being discovered was slim.

"Hah!" He had discovered a drawer full of shampoos, hair spray, makeup, and dye. And yes, there was one that had a hair sample taped on it that was about his color. Shaking it, he found that it was half full. Now to get the hair.

* * *

Luckily, Logan had developed a habit on these hot days right before school let out. He got up in the morning at the unearthly hour of four AM to exercise when it was still cool, and slept through most of the afternoon, when the air conditioning refused to lower the temperature to less than 75 degrees Fahrenheit, way too hot to do anything but laze around. Of course, the temperature didn't really bother Bobby, except for the fact that his ice melted quicker and everyone was bugging him to make his or her room cooler. (They just didn't understand how much energy it took him, apparently.)

At any rate, right now Logan should be sound asleep, just waiting for Bobby to snip off some of his hair. Unfortunately, it would have to be snipped rather than shaved, as the electric buzz of a razor would probably wake him.

Bobby pressed his ear to Logan's door, listening for movement. Nothing. Slowly opening the door as silently as he could, Bobby crept in.

Logan was snoring softly, sprawled on top of his bed with what were obviously the thinnest clothes he could find on. Scissors and baggie in hand, Bobby tiptoed up to Logan's head. Bobby could see his eyes twitching behind his eyelids; Logan must be having another one of his nightmares. Bobby tried not to think about what had happened to the last person who had woken Logan when he was dreaming. Somehow, Bobby doubted that he would heal if Logan stabbed him.

Logan's hair was all weird and gel-less, drooping over his head sadly. Two clumps were a tad longer than the rest of it, apparently the "tufts". They were the only part of Logan's hair that would be long enough. Holding his breath, Bobby slid the open scissors into the hair, and – _snip_. A long clump fell off, which Bobby lightly caught.

_Snip.__ Snip. Snip._ Chunks of hair were deposited into Bobby's baggie until he estimated he had enough. Logan now looked like…Not a wolverine, that's for sure. He looked as though a crazy axe murderer had tried to behead him several times, but had hit his hair instead.

Extremely relieved to still be in one piece, Bobby crept out of Logan's room.


	4. Making the beard

**Author's notes:**

So much for that writer's block…I was bouncing ideas off my dad (he came up with some great ones, many of which I incorporated), and now I have this whole thing planned out. Unfortunately for some of you guys, we decided there wasn't a way to really bring the girl in without making it totally cliché.

I've been meaning to say this for a while: The idea from this story came from my little random word generator. I got the idea for the generator from Challenge in a Can and I also used many of Challenge in a Can's words. (And in case you're wondering, my generator isn't on the internet and has only shared with one of my friends.)

Again, thanks to all my reviewers, and, no matter who you are, please review! (Even if you totally hate this…Just don't flame.)

* * *

"This isn't how it's supposed to work," Bobby groaned. He was using special toupee glue, leftover from an old prank, but the hair still didn't want to stick. For all the good it was doing, it could have been water.

Throwing the bottle down in frustration, Bobby resolved to find something more effective. After wiping the useless glue off his precious hair, Bobby dumped out the contents of his prank bag. The bag contained the leftovers from all the pranks he had ever done. Several of these pranks had involved glue, from Elmer's to that toupee stuff, to…rubber cement. Perfect. Bobby picked up the can and beamed at it. This stuff _had_ to work.

On second thought, would it work too well? This was heavy-duty stuff. But his other choices weren't too great, and he definitely wasn't going to put Superglue on his face.

Shrugging off his doubts, Bobby dipped the locks of hair (he had taken great care to make sure the locks didn't break apart) into the liquid glue. Quickly, before it could dry, he pressed the hair to his face.

After ten minutes of painstakingly cautious work, and a couple more minutes of drying time, his beard was complete. Running a hand over it, Bobby grinned in satisfaction. He had done a great job; the hair was evenly spaced and felt like an authentic beard. But that was just by feel. Bobby picked up the hand-held mirror he had taken from the girls' bathroom and looked into it.

His face fell as he realized something. How in the world did he manage to forget the dye? Yes, his beard looked wonderful, but it wasn't remotely blond. Well, the hair seemed firmly fixed to his face. He should be able to dye it as he would a real beard.

Bobby looked at his bottle of hair dye, reading the instructions. "So you take this tube thing, mix it with the stuff in the bottle, shake, and 'apply to hair'. Sounds simple enough."

Five minutes later, Bobby was following the instructions in the nearest bathroom. Restless, Bobby had to prevent himself from pacing, something that was decidedly an "old-person" behavior. The bottle insisted on him waiting almost half-an-hour before he could rinse the dye out. And he couldn't leave the bathroom to do something constructive, in case anyone saw him.

Finally, he could rinse the stuff out. As he did, he realized his newly dyed beard looked a little odd. Slowly and apprehensively, Bobby looked into the mirror. His beard…He couldn't have moved or spoken if his life depended on it. All he could do was make an odd squeaking sound.

* * *

I know, I'm a bad writer for the cliffhanger ending. But now I'm practically guaranteed that you'll all come back! :D


	5. Complications

I know you all thought this story was dead, and honestly, I did too. But I just decided that I really do like it and might as well finish it, so here you go. It's pretty close to the end now, so it should be done in a week or two. As always, nice reviews help me write faster, concrit makes the next chapters better, and negative reviews tell me what not to do again. So whatever you feel about this story, it's really in your best interest to review. Enjoy!

* * *

The bottle had been mislabeled. It had been severely mislabeled, in fact. About as severely mislabeled as anything Bobby could think of ever seeing. Why someone would have stuck a blonde sample on this bottle, he couldn't even begin to imagine. For that matter, he couldn't imagine why anyone would have bought magenta hair dye in the first place. Could Jubilee…? It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was getting the stuff off. 

A quick glance at the bottle confirmed his suspicion: it was permanent. The whole thing would have to come off, then. Maybe he could go back to Logan and get more hair, but he couldn't believe he would get away with that twice. And anyway, without real blonde dye, it would be useless. He tugged at the beard and winced; the glue was holding up remarkably well. A few more tugs convinced him that if he wanted to pull it off, he'd have to be willing to sacrifice a nice chunk of skin. The only way to avoid walking around with a magenta beard would be to shave.

He closed his eyes and leaned forward against the mirror. There was no way he was going on a date like this. There was no way he was leaving the _bathroom_ like this! "She'll just have to have a fit," he muttered to himself, digging out a razor.

It didn't work. Bobby supposed he should have known it wouldn't, but it was still a shock to see little pink stubble glued to his chin. With so little hair left, the glue was horribly obvious. When he tried shaving closer, the only thing he managed to do was nick himself. He grunted and grabbed at a Kleenex to stop the blood.

So. He could go out on his date and try to explain that he'd both shaved and glued pink stuff to his chin. Such an explanation would be difficult to invent; more likely, he would be left stammering about something completely unrelated. Alternatively, he could hide in his room and pray that the glue would loosen overnight. And risk her breaking up with him. But then, if she realized (as she undoubtedly would) that he had lied to her, even about something as trivial as a beard, she would probably break up with him anyway.

With a groan, Bobby resolved to email her and say he was sick. Maybe she'd believe him, and maybe she would be willing to reschedule. More likely she would just not respond to any further emails, but he couldn't see a better option. "How did this happen? How in the world did this happen?"

By the use of creative maneuvering, he managed to make it to his room without anyone seeing him. Unfortunately, John was waiting for him there. At the sight of Bobby's face, his eyebrows rose higher than Bobby realized was possible.

"It didn't work," Bobby snapped, forestalling him.

"I never would have guessed."

"Shut up."

"Are you planning on going like that?" John snorted. "I think it's my duty as your friend to stop you."

"No, I'm going to tell her I'm sick."

"If you'd done that in the first place, your life would have been a lot easier."

"What part of 'shut up' is hard for you?" Bobby grabbed his laptop and began trying to compose an acceptable email, the sort that cried out apologies yet was supremely dignified.

"The general idea of watching this without comment. Whose hair did you use?"

"Not telling. Let me think or go away."

"Must be bad. Have you put me in your will y– Hey! Don't you dare throw my things at me!"

"'I am terribly sorry, but I am unable to go out tonight. I've come down with a sudden case of the flu and simply cannot leave my house. My flu should be gone by next week, and I would love to reschedule then. I am once again very sincerely sorry.' Sound okay?"

"Sounds old."

"What?"

"You sound like the professor. Do you want her to think she's dating a geezer?"

Bobby turned to give his friend the most indignant look he could muster, but he did rewrite the email. "Good enough," he said, and sent it.


End file.
